Listening to Dutch Kills – Chance Ecologies sound walk

I am excited about this project in my neighborhood of Long Island City and to be a participating artist, animating the presence of oysters in Dutch Kills and in the estuary at large. Listening to Dutch Kills is a new public art project created by Chance Ecologies. This project is an immersive audio walk that guides participants around the waters of the Dutch Kills tributary of Newtown Creek. The walk was commissioned by the SWIM Coalition, and curated by Catherine GrauSarah Nelson Wright and Nathan Kensinger, and includes new audio works by Nate DorrEdrex FontanillaRachel Stevens, and Moira Williams. Please join us at the launch event on Saturday, June 29th!

More details on the walk and the SWIM Coalition can be seen here: https://www.swimmablenyc.org/dutch-kills-public-art-project/

And please RSVP for the launch event here, which includes an artists talk and picnic:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/getting-to-zero-cso-in-dutch-k…

Here is the view you will be facing during the oyster segment.

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A Field Guide to iLANDing

Field-Guide-cover-0625-full-bleed_670-626x1024So pleased to have played a small role in the generation of scores for this wonderful book: A Field Guide to iLANDing: scores for researching urban ecologies. As part of the Urban Backstage Research Group, one of the year-long research residencies focusing on the East River waterfront area, we generated a few scores that you can try out yourself if you get this book.

What a treat to spend quality time exploring space, land, movement and ideas with these co-conspirators in the Urban Backstage iLAB Residency group: Julie Kline (Theater Actor/ Director), Clarinda Mac Low (Interdisciplinary Artist), Elliott Maltby (Urban Designer/ Landscape Architect), Jeremy Pickard (Eco-Theater Artist) and Shawn Shafner (Artist / Educator / Activist).

And a special thanks to the inspiring Jennifer Monson, the visionary behind the whole iLAND organization.

Three walks for the Pier 42 City of Water Day Summer Celebration

ub_collectpondjuly18_990x660On July 18th we animated some waterways in Lower Manhattan with some performative, experiential walks at Collect Pond, tracing the path of Old Wreck Brook to the East River through some interstitial and public/private urban spaces and then on to the ‘CSO theater’ at Corlear’s Hook.
Here’s the schedule:

Paths to Pier 42: Summer Waterfront Celebration and City of Water Day

Saturday, July 18, 2-6pm
Pier 42

The 2015 iLAB Residency groups, Water & Im/migration and The Urban Backstage, invite you to Pier 42 on Saturday, July 18th, to join in the Paths to Pier 42: Summer Waterfront Celebration and City of Water Day. As part of the Waterfront Alliance’s larger City of Water Day celebration, Paths to Pier 42 will host an afternoon of family-friendly activities including the iLAND events listed below.

2PM  The Urban Backstage: Collect Pond Park performance 
Location: The performance begins at the southern end of Collect Pond Park
The first of three linked walking and talking performances about the city and its relationship to water. Visit the place where Collect Pond used to be, and imagine the city when it was the primary source of fresh drinking water and a place of leisure and escape.

2:45PM   The Urban Backstage: Wreck Brook / East River walk 
Location: The walk begins at Foley Square and ends at Pier 42
The second of three linked walking and talking performances: walk the trail of the former Old Wreck Brook from Foley Square to the East River exploring the links between natural and engineered water systems.

4PM    Water & Im/migration: Shore of Hope – Part II
Location: Pier 42
Enjoy arts activities for all ages, including a calligraphy workshop, a choral performance by members of the Open Door Senior Citizen Center, and movement sharing to explore the themes of Water and Immigration (for ages 7 and older).

4:30PM  The Urban Backstage: CSO Theater
Location: Starts at the Pier 42 welcome tent
The last of three walking and talking performances: travel from Pier 42 to the East River Amphitheater where ideas about what’s hidden–under our city, and in ourselves–take to the stage.

Fish Stories Community Cookbook

IMG_6563We’ve been commissioned to do a project for Paths to Pier 42, the Fish Stories Community Cookbook. We’re collecting recipes, stories and drawings from residents of the Lower East Side plus ecological info about local fish and the East River Waterfront for a spiral-bound cookbook to be handed back to participants in October. We’re holding workshops and tabling at local events. The cookbook is meant to celebrate local cultures while activating a relationship with the incredible local estuary.

Public events at Pier 42 are May 9, July 18 and October 25. On May 9th we’ll be offering fish drawing for kids and be on site to talk about our project.

Fish Stories Community Cookbook website

Fish Stories Community Cookbook flyer

 

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Oyster City

Oyster City is an augmented reality walking tour and game about the history of oysters in the New York City area that I am working on with Meredith Drum and Phoenix Toews. The project is being built for the iOS platform (iPhone and iPad) with software that Phoenix developed. Oyster City will make visible relationships between ecological, social and economic histories as players interact with virtual objects and narratives placed in the landscape. We will be presenting a workshop on using augmented reality along with an early demo of our project at Mobility Shifts: An International Future of Learning Summit at the New School in October.